Head of the Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev has condemned holding elections in breakaway Nagorno-Karabkah region that is under Armenian occupation.

Addressing a press conference on April 8, Hajiyev said: "120 states unanimously supported the position of Azerbaijan, its territorial integrity, sovereignty. The insidious essence of the illegal regime created by Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan is manifested in the fact that while the whole world is suffering from coronavirus, they continue their dirty political games".

Earlier, a number of countries, including France, Germany, Turkey, UK, Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia as well as major international organizations such as the EU, NATO, OIC, GUAM condemned the illegal elections in Karabakh and voiced support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

Nagorno-Karabakh is Azerbaijan's breakaway region, which along with seven adjacent regions was occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and around one million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

The OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France has been mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict since the signing of the volatile cease-fire agreement in 1994. The Minsk Group’s efforts have resulted in no progress and to this date, Armenia has failed to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) that demand the withdrawal of Armenian military forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.